Spatial diffusion of an online social network: towards typology refinement

Jakobi, Ákos and Lengyel, Balázs (2014) Spatial diffusion of an online social network: towards typology refinement. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. ISSN 0265-8135 (Submitted)

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Abstract

Although spatial diffusion of innovations has been analysed for decades, recent increase in the amount of available data will provide us with more refined insights. In this paper we exploit an individual level dataset from an online social network (OSN), in which we can trace invitations from registered users to new users and identify location of every user and over the entire life-cycle of the online service. We quest classic categories of spatial diffusion in a refined manner and find that hierarchical diffusion was the dominant way of diffusion over the full period but its share was shrinking in the second half of the lifecycle, when neighbourhood diffusion intensified. Then, two new types of diffusion processes are introduced: loop diffusion and agglomeration diffusion. Loop diffusion – when innovation spreads within the same territory – has the largest share in diffusion over the whole OSN life-cycle. Agglomeration diffusion – a mix of hierarchical and neighbourhood diffusion – is found to take place in urban areas of the country where innovation cascades from regional centres to neighbouring territories. Despite the complex nature of internet geographies, our categories keep random diffusion among 5-15% over the full period.

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